


Folded and Unfolded and Unfolding

by orphan_account



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-06 22:55:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8772643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: In their somewhat dingy grad student apartment after the war, ft. Burt the dog (and sometimes Ike the cat).





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this](http://pineapplecrushface.tumblr.com/post/151296035730/generoes-band-of-brothers-modern-au-instagram) post, which made me realize I needed to write post-war grad school Dick and Nix and their very pleasant instagram life. Title is from [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MDawxCLt3A).

In Kabul in the last days of the war, Lew found Dick early in the morning getting ready for a swim in the hotel pool a few miles down the road from their barracks. In December the water was miserably cold, and Dick wasn’t sure why they had left the pool open – maybe because the strange redheaded American liked to use it every morning. He wasn’t going to ask or complain. When they returned to Kentucky he would have use of a heated pool, which he tried not to think about when he was sitting on the edge of this one preparing to jump in.

Lew was scheduled to separate in March, and Dick in May. They had had a brief discussion, when the war appeared to be over, of reenlisting, but then Lew had started to hear mumblings about staying in Afghanistan on special assignment, and then more mumblings about Iran. Or maybe it was Syria. It might have been Iraq again. At any rate, Dick saw his future in the military and it was away from the men and full of paperwork.

“All right, guts and glory,” Lew had said. “What are we gonna do when we’re civilians again?”

“I have no idea,” Dick had replied, shivering so hard he bit his tongue whenever he tried to talk. “Not this.”

“I don’t know what your problem is,” Lew said. “This is the best assignment yet.”

They were deep in the mountains then, and not bound by ordinary Army standards. All the men had let their beards grow until they were barely recognizable – including Dick, although he refused to let his creep down his neck and kept it neat even while Lew laughed at him. Over the next few months, until they were recalled to Kabul, they bandied ideas back and forth, but never came up with anything. Lew voted for sleeping for the next three years, while Dick was thinking about starting a business. Only now, a week out from leaving, he was still uncertain about what kind and where and when.

“Here’s a question for you,” Lew said, gingerly sitting down beside him on the edge of a broken pool chair. He was wearing his gortex, and Dick wondered if he could be persuaded to hand it over after Dick was done swimming.

“Make it quick.” Dick rubbed his arms and tried to work up the momentum to take his shirt off.

“What do you think about grad school?” he asked.

Dick shuffled his feet on the cold tile. “I hadn’t. What would we do?”

Lew cleared his throat. “I was thinking,” he said. “Maybe I might get an MBA. Join the ranks of the marginally employable. I thought – maybe you might want to come with me. For your future business.”

Dick realized then that he was no longer cold – flushed, actually, because Lew’s arm was rubbing against his as they leaned against each other on the chair. It was dangerous to feel so good about that, and about the fact that Lew took for granted that they would stick together after they got out. It was dangerous to even think about it, and so he wouldn’t. But he couldn’t pull away.

“That seems like it might be interesting,” he said.

“Yeah, well. We can delay the real world for a few years, let the GI Bill take care of us.” Lew squinted into the horizon where the morning inversion kept the haze within a thousand feet of the ground.

His first wild impulse was to say yes; under any and all circumstances, yes, as long as Lew would have him. Lew had asked him once what he was thinking about while he was waiting to answer people. _I’m trying not to blurt out the first thing that comes into my head_ , he had admitted. “I’ll think about it,” he said instead.

*

Certainly, Dick thought, their apartment in Queen Village was not the worst place he had ever lived. The hot water was temperamental, they were briefly driven insane by stinkbugs, and dust appeared on every surface at a rate he didn’t understand. But he wasn’t fussy about these things; the rent was cheap and it was within walking distance of the business college. Lew, who was fussy about these things, was uncharacteristically complacent. He didn’t like to live alone and he’d seen worse, he said. He and Dick alternated harassing the landlord until they had a new water heater, which Dick installed himself, halfway under the sink while Lew sat on the floor beside him and browsed through youtube videos to give him tips.

Going to class with Lew was no different from going to class with any of his roommates during undergrad. He drank too much and never studied, while Dick did not drink and always studied. The difference was that Lew never teased him about it, and the two of them were of one mind about business courses and textbooks: they were all ridiculous bullshit, but eventually something they learned would be worthwhile. For Dick, it was his accounting course. For Lew – well, Dick wasn’t sure. He seemed to be equally indifferent to all of it. Dick found himself wondering why Lew had wanted to go back to school at all, but when he thought about it he couldn’t recall Lew ever expressing a desire for any career or ambition. He liked to read, and to travel, and to drink and go to parties, and that was as much as Dick knew about what Lew wanted.

No, scratch that, there was one more thing.

“I’ve been thinking about getting a dog,” Lew said one night in late October, when it was starting to get cold enough that Dick’s mother sent him back from Lancaster with big fat blankets that they wrapped up in while they read in the living room.

Dick looked up from his work, blinking. “What kind of dog?”

Lew put down his book and shrugged, tightening his blanket around his shoulders. “I don’t know. A mutt, I guess. I’ve never had a mutt. And not a puppy, I’ve trained enough puppies to last me the rest of my life.”

Dick imagined him with a puppy and could only remember the time he had pretended to throw out a live grenade when the new guys weren’t paying attention during his intel briefing. “No puppies,” he agreed.

Lew took a deep sip of his coffee, into which he always poured exactly two shots of whisky. He was wrapped up in the gray blanket, and was wearing his Yale hoodie and a pair of blue plaid pajama pants, his socked feet tucked up underneath him. The couch, which he had brought with him from New Jersey, was his domain. There were stacks of books and several coffee mugs on the end table, and he had set his running shoes down on one arm sometime in August and forgotten about them. Dick’s armchair had been his father’s and was deep and comfortable only to him. They faced away from the dining area, which was really just a tiny table and chairs set up between the two big window nooks where you could sit and look out onto the street.

“Do you want to go to the pound this weekend and take a look around?” Dick asked.

“You want to?” Lew looked surprised. “I didn’t know if you’d want a dog.”

“I think it’d be nice,” he said. “It can keep Ike in line.”

Lew snorted. “No one can keep Ike in line. He’s the biggest asshole I’ve ever met, with the possible exception of Herbert Sobel.”

They both turned to look at the cat, who was sleeping on top of Lew’s coat on the back of the couch. Ike, a grumbly orange tomcat with only one eye, belonged to the apartment and the surrounding area. He spent much of his time on the balcony, or in the laundromat below the apartment. A previous tenant had gotten the cat neutered, but it didn’t seem to affect his relationship with the lady cats of the neighborhood, who crowded underneath Lew’s window and howled until he went downstairs and shooed them away.

The dog, who was not a puppy and was definitely a mutt, was named Burt. He was the first dog Lew set eyes on at the shelter. “That one,” he said to Dick, pointing out the skinny black and white collie mix pressed against the cage, trying to reach them. “That’s my dog.”

Dick crouched in front of the cage and put his hand up so the dog could sniff it. “My name is Burt,” he said, reading the tag. “My owner died and I miss her very much, so it may take me some time to trust you.”

He looked down at the dog, who had flopped onto his back and was showing them his belly. Lew stuck his fingers through the bars and rubbed one pointy ear.

“I think he’s picked you out,” Dick said, and two hours later, with dire warnings about getting him enough exercise, they took Burt home. He was too nervous to eat much for the first couple of days, and Dick decided he was not a dog who cared much about food – he seemed to care much more about attention. This initial opinion was proven completely incorrect in the following months and years, as Burt’s first true love, sometimes even truer than his love for Lew and Dick, was food. Burt could be convinced to do nearly anything by even the promise of a snack. Dick taught him how to shake, roll over, and play dead using copious amounts of snacks, although Lew always said Burt already knew how to do these tricks and many others and was playing a long game.

The dog spent most nights in Lew’s bedroom, although once in a while he showed up beside Dick’s bed and waited patiently to be allowed up. The first time he did so, Lew appeared in the doorway a few minutes later, his hair a mess, arms crossed over his chest.

“Sorry,” he said. “I think I kicked him in my sleep.”

“It’s all right,” Dick said. “He can stay with me if he wants.”

Burt had wormed his way up under Dick’s arm so he was properly spooned, and Dick was already halfway asleep again. Lew watched for a few moments, scratching his calf idly with his other foot, before he said, “Well, it’s your bed. He farts a lot though.”

Dick laughed at that and then was out completely, and although it turned out that Lew was right and Burt did fart a lot, Dick liked having him up on the bed. The two of them woke at the same time and both of them liked to run in the early morning. Dick usually ran two or three miles every day, but after Burt arrived, he started running five or six in an attempt to wear him out. It had the same effect on Dick, and Lew often woke at noon to find the two of them sacked out on the couch. Dick was always a little embarrassed to be discovered napping, and would sometimes pretend he had been awake and reading or watching television the whole time, but Lew was never fooled.

“You don’t have to run yourself ragged like that,” Lew said, leaning over the side of the couch to rub Burt’s belly. Burt liked to squeeze himself between Dick and the cushions, so Lew’s hand smoothed along his back as well. It felt nice enough that he groaned and stretched. Lew’s hand stopped for a moment and then began pressing against the tightest spots on his back, and he couldn’t stop the way he arched into Lew’s touch.

“We like a nice long run, don’t we Burt?” Dick asked, and the dog kicked him.

“I guess I adopted two dogs,” Lew said. “Do you need your ears scratched too?”

Dick grinned. “Yep,” he said. “And some bacon.”

Lew patted his hip and straightened, snapping for the dog to come to him. Burt, knowing it was time for his midday walk, stepped in several sensitive spots while climbing over Dick.

“Is this payback for dumping your piss on you?” Dick asked.

“The Nixon family motto is ‘never forget that time your friend threw piss on you,’ so yeah,” Lew said.

When Dick sat up he saw that Lew was sitting on the floor by the door, pulling rain boots over his pajama bottoms. “Hey, hold on a sec and I’ll come with you.”

Lew shook his head. “Christ, I really do have two dogs. I half expect to wake up with both of you in bed next to me.”

Dick was glad he was facing away, tugging on his boots. His face was hot, and he pressed it against the cold door. “I hope I smell better than Burt,” he said after a minute, and grimaced down at his boots. Why had he said that? What a stupid thing to say.

“You always smell good,” Lew said. “Come on, Burt, let’s go.”

He was out the door and down the stairs before Dick had had a chance to react, and then – well, at least he had the cold damp air to blame for the redness.

*

It was hard to accept that his life was actually pretty pleasant now, all things considered. All he had wanted during the last several years was peace and quiet, and now he had it, but there was some nagging part of him that couldn’t quite accept it and insisted on picking at the edges. He didn’t have much of a self-analytical bent, because he didn’t believe in hiding anything from himself and so he never felt there was much to analyze, but the nagging feeling persisted and finally he thought he might as well have a look at it.

“I think you feel guilty,” Lew told him one morning. All the leaves were gone from the trees; the tourists complained that it had been a singularly rainy and ugly November. Lew had one of the window nooks open a crack and sat there smoking while Dick made breakfast. Their first class was at ten, but Lew was already awake when Dick and Burt came back wet and muddy from their run. Dick brought the dog into the shower with him for a little while to get the mud out before releasing him to Lew and a bundle of towels warm from the dryer. Lew had hung up Dick’s favorite towel for him outside the shower and Dick wondered if it was an accident or not – surely he couldn’t know that Dick liked this towel best.

“Guilty?” he asked, turning it over in his mind, comparing guilt he had felt before to whatever he was feeling now.

“I know you’re probably not familiar with the concept,” Lew said. “It’s when you do something wrong and you know you should probably fix it, but you can’t or you don’t know how.”

“Do you feel guilty about anything, Lew?” He couldn’t imagine Lew wrestling with his own foibles, although he was honest about them to himself and others. He tended to justify them, that was all.

“Oh, I dunno,” Lew said. “I guess I only have one failed marriage on my hands. It could be worse.”

Dick cracked two eggs at once and dropped them into the pan, and was pleased that neither yolk broke. It was a trick he’d been trying to accomplish for a while and still only succeeded at about half the time. “Why did you get married?” he asked eventually. “I always wondered. Not that you aren’t the marrying type.”

“I liked the idea of being married,” Lew said, blowing a long plume of smoke out the window. “You’d get to be together all the time, share everything with each other, touch whenever you want. I just wasn’t very good at it.”

“Why?” Dick asked. “Was it that difficult?”

“I thought it was just me, that I was difficult. I don’t communicate very well,” he said. “Or something. But I realized I was never in love. That’s what it comes down to.”

“You didn’t know? When you got married?”

“Nope. I thought how I felt – being attracted to her, having this idea of how we were together that was really a daydream – was love. But it wasn’t.” He mashed his cigarette in the ashtray. He drew his knees up to his chest, his voice quiet. “I know what it feels like now. If I got married again it would be the real thing.”

Dick poked at the eggs for a while, trying to wrestle down the deep envy for whomever had taught Lew what love felt like. When the bacon was done he tipped the bacon grease into the eggs, the way they had both learned to like it during OCS. He handed Lew a plate and they both sat in the window nook watching the rainy streets, their bare toes touching. He noticed these moments of pure happiness more and more lately. Small moments, things he might have passed by before the war because he had no contrasting experience. Now he could see them, having been shown an opposite. This hour of quiet in the morning with Lew, with hot coffee and eggs and bacon to ward off the draft by the window, was all the better for the spike of pain that came with it. They had survived and were here together and there were really beautiful things in the world, and Lew was one of them.

The guilt – he thought it probably was guilt – seemed to be part of that. How could he dare be happy again? And this kind of happiness, which wasn’t merely contentment or peace but actual joy? It wasn’t right that he should be allowed to feel good at all, let alone to feel more than he had before. He had liked life but now he loved it afresh every day, with a round completeness the way you love something deep and difficult to find. And it seemed – and perhaps here was the source of the guilt – it seemed worse that the war had given him something so beautiful. It was worse, much worse than unfair that he could return to a safe home with food on the table and everyone he loved close to him, able to pursue something he enjoyed, able to forget about the war for long stretches at a time.

He leaned his head against the fogging window and pulled his cup of coffee close to his chest. “I think you might be right about the guilt,” he whispered. Lew inched closer, putting a hand on his knee, and he grabbed it and held on.

“You can’t help the circumstances of your existence, Dick,” Lew said, running his thumb over Dick’s knuckles. “Trust me on this, you’ll go nuts if you start to think about what’s fair in life and what’s not.”

The touch of Lew’s warm skin against his gave him that total and painful pleasure, and he closed his eyes to absorb it more fully. When he opened them again Lew was watching him with his eyes straightforward and dark and serious. He opened his mouth to say – oh, he wanted to say it, everything in him wanted to say it, he felt like he was breathing it in and out – but what came out was, “Thanks, Lew.”

Lew let go and patted his knee. “No problem,” he said, and jabbed his thumb in the direction of the rug. “Check him out.”

Burt was asleep on his back with his feet up, slowly paddling through the air. They watched him for a few minutes, and then Dick unfolded himself from the window nook and gathered the dishes to wash them.


	2. Chapter 2

Realizing he was in love with Lew took a long time. He wasn’t sure why but thought perhaps it was simply that he didn’t expect it to happen without his approval. Or perhaps it was because Lew was the first close friend he had ever had and it was easy to mistake the new closeness for something else. He didn’t know and no amount of reflection could tell him when he had actually fallen in love; he only knew when he was in the middle of it. And oh, it was a furious day in Dick Winters’s world when he figured out what had been going on right under his very nose for months or possibly even years. _Years_ he could have been oblivious to his own internal state. Sometimes he was still angry about it.

It was probably fitting that it was a battle that did it. Maharib Kalay was his and Lew’s first real battle and the way they laid it out was as careful and steady an operation as he’d ever seen. It was an accumulation of everything Dick had always thought a military operation should be, everything he’d gleaned from his training and his intuition: planned and practiced, calm and quiet. “Dig in and don’t stop,” Dick had said in the briefing the night before. “We are the only thing cutting off this supply route. Good luck and god be with you.”

Lew liked to say they were a well oiled machine, and Dick took a lot of comfort in that. These were not your average soldiers, half-assing their way through a four-year enlistment to avoid jail or because they were kicked out of college. These soldiers wanted to be here, had volunteered for it and stuck it out because they were lean and ready and smart. Dick didn’t want to speculate on anyone’s motivations, but he didn't think there was a glory hound among them. They all wanted to get the job done and get home.

There were a lot of things he couldn’t remember from the battle no matter how painstakingly he wrote everything down in his journal afterward, but he remembered the breathless hush before the fighting started like nothing else in his life. Dug into his position at the top of the eastern ridge, with Malarkey on his left flank and Dukeman and Webster on his right, waiting for the first trucks to come through the pass, he fell into something that was almost like a trance. Later he would describe it like that, but it wouldn’t quite catch the feeling of heightened awareness of each moment, as if he could sense a fly’s wings moving a mile away, or see each particle of moisture in his breath misting the air. It was 23Z before they caught movement in the pass – scouts, five of them, armed. The valley was so quiet and echoey under the cloudless sky that radios were out of the question, so Dick was waiting on Lipton’s signal. As soon as the final vehicle in the convoy came through the pass, it would begin.

At 2342, he saw Lipton raise his hand and give the go-ahead, and each team member on the ridge began to shoot at his designated truck in the convoy. Dick was third in line and so took the third truck. He had always liked to shoot and wondered in what ways shooting an enemy target would be different from paper – if he would be one of those people who could think of them as the same thing, or if he would balk at the last moment. He didn’t, but it wasn’t anything like the paper target. Even from this distance, he knew that his bullet had met flesh and muscle, a body whose functioning ceased because of him. The driver of the truck was dead before either he or the passenger had any idea that the convoy was being attacked. He left the passenger alive, hoping to turn him over as a prisoner.

The entire thing was smooth. A well oiled machine, Dick thought, and wondered where Lew was. Probably back away from the line a bit, watching the action with Colonel Sink. But he knew he couldn’t think about Lew for very long or his concentration would be broken, and he didn’t stop to wonder why. If pressed, he would have said it was because he trusted Lew more than anyone else, and liked to have an intelligence officer around to bounce ideas off of.

Fortunately for his concentration, there was another convoy of seventeen trucks behind the first one, which no one had expected, and he spent the next forty-eight hours not thinking about Lew at all.

*

It was dawn when Dick looked around and realized there was nothing more he could do. The prisoners were on their way back to Kabul. The enemy dead were being cleared out and his dead team members were long gone. There was one downed medevac helicopter and the second had come in twice to pick up the injured. Everyone who was left was sitting in clusters and eating MREs or sleeping. He had circled the entire area twice to make sure there were no snipers, and now he supposed there was nothing left but to sit and wait for orders to fall back to the airport.

When Lew appeared he thought for a moment that he had hallucinated the entire previous three days. Lew looked tired but as normal as ever, with his five o’clock shadow that was clearly from five o’clock sometime last week, the front of his hair sticking up when he took off his helmet, his eyes calm and concerned.

“Hey,” he said, crouching beside Dick. “You all right?”

“Can I have some water?” he asked. He had emptied one canteen, and sometime before dawn he’d realized that the other had a bullet hole in it and had thrown the thing deep into the valley.

“Sure,” Lew said, handing him a water bottle from his bag. It was warm and Dick thought he’d probably left it out in the sun to use later for coffee, and he was glad it was warm because the inside of his throat felt torn up from the sand.

“Thanks,” he said. Lew stared at him for a moment, biting his lip thoughtfully, and reached out and ran his thumb under Dick’s eyes, first the left and then the right.

“I don’t think you want the guys seeing you like this,” he said when Dick raised his eyebrows. Dick thought – well, he probably didn’t look that great. He probably looked like a mess.

“We’re falling back to the airport, I guess,” Dick said.

“That’s the plan.”

“We lost six men.”

“I know,” Lew said. “You won, though.”

Dick stood up and stretched, letting Lew lead him to the Humvee. It was too loud to talk the entire way to the airport and he was glad. He wasn’t sure he could take anything else, not a single new word out of Lew’s mouth, without something terrible happening, and Lew seemed disinclined to talk even when they reached the airport. Like almost all the buildings they holed up in, it had been bombed sometime in the recent past and there were no windows. The stairs were off-limits because they were falling apart, but the roof and the base were solid, if alarmingly cracked in some areas. Someone had tried to sweep the floors free of debris and glass and had run out of time or patience halfway through the lobby. Lew sat down in a clean area and put his bag on the floor as if staking out a plot of land.

“I’m waiting for word from the S3 XO,” he said, patting the part of his bag that held the satellite phone. “Then I’m off to Kandahar.”

Dick nodded without understanding. Adrenaline had kept him present and mostly alert, although he was annoyed by how much his hands shook and his stomach hurt, but as soon as he sat down on the dirty linoleum beside Lew he couldn’t keep his eyes open. After the fourth time his head drooped until his chin hit his chest and he woke with a start, Lew said, “Why don’t you just stretch out and sleep for a few minutes?”

“I’m okay,” he said, but Lew was already urging him to the side. He tried to tuck his helmet under his head, but Lew gave an exasperated noise and pulled it away, pushing something soft under him instead.

“There you go, that’s good,” Lew said. The sleep that hit him then was deep and dreamless, but before he succumbed completely he felt Lew’s hand on the back of his neck.

He woke to Harry saying, “He looks cozy.”

“For Christ’s sake, Harry, leave him alone. He’s been awake for three days,” Lew said.

“Sorry, can’t. Sink needs him at Brigade,” Harry said, and he sounded genuinely sorry, which was the only reason Dick didn’t throw something at him.

“I’m up,” he said, pushing himself upright with a grimace. Everything ached, and he wished he had been able to postpone sleep a little while longer to delay the pain.

When he stood he saw that the thing Lew had given him as a pillow was his jacket, and he was sitting there glaring at the now bustling airport and shivering.

“Hey.” Dick nudged the jacket toward him with his foot, and Lew looked up at him, his glare mostly gone. But there was something moody happening there and Dick wondered what the problem was. “You want to come?”

“Nah, I have a ride to catch,” he said.

Dick shrugged and fastened his helmet, slinging his weapon over his shoulder and following Harry out of the airport. _There you go, that’s good_ , Lew had said. It felt as if it had woven its way into his sleep and it made him warm and – something he couldn’t identify, something good. Lew hated to be acknowledged for being nice and would retreat into teasing if Dick tried, but he wanted to go back inside and thank him all the same. No, what he wanted, he realized as his feet crunched through the uneven gravel, was to turn around, walk back into the airport, find Lew in his big warm jacket, put his arms around him and fall asleep there.

He rubbed his eyes to get rid of the grit and the new, intrusive feeling, and noticed his hands were no longer shaking. That moment, the moment he realized he loved Lew Nixon, stayed with him after everything else about Maharib Kalay blurred together: staring down at his hands, eyes scratched and blurry in the sunlight, while he trudged behind Harry and tried not to trip over stray brush. God, he was furious. Hadn’t he told DeEtta that the best soldiers were unattached, and that he didn’t know what love was and didn’t want to even think about it until the war was over? And here he was, absolutely full of it.

“You all right?” Harry asked, falling back to walk in stride with him.

“Yeah, we’re fine. I’m fine,” he said. He was sliding the adjustor on the strap of his rifle up and down like he always did, to get the dirt out of the canvas, but he knew he was doing it too hard, and that Harry had noticed.

“You think we’re going to finally get some R&R?”

“Lew would know, not me,” he snapped. He stopped just short of kicking the dirt and sighed. “Sorry. It’s been a – a bad day.”

“What a hell of a fight,” Harry said. “Sink’ll yell at you for a little while and then we can go back and Mama Nixon will make it all better.”

Dick rubbed his hands over his face. “For you, maybe,” he said.

“You could always indulge a little too, for medicinal purposes,” Harry said. “After the last couple of days, no one would even blink.”

“I’ll sit this one out, thanks,” he said. “I’m just going to sleep as much as I can. I have a feeling we’ll be on the move soon.”

It crept up on him again, the desire to turn around and get back to the airport – to run there, if he had to – to wrap himself up in Lew until they fell asleep. What a bizarre little fantasy, he thought. Just to be warm and tucked against Lew’s body. It was stupid, really stupid, to love it so much when Lew took care of him, and it was even more stupid to daydream about it, for Pete’s sake. But the dream left him so oddly happy – not at all peaceful or settled, the way he felt thinking about the future sometimes, but breathless in a way, the way you might feel anticipating a gift you’d wanted for years. There was nothing productive about it and he’d have to push it away for good in a little while, but maybe it was okay, just for a minute, to think about Lew and how nice it would be if Lew were beside him, if he turned and cupped Dick’s face and – his breath caught, and he couldn’t believe he was thinking about it but he didn’t want to stop – and kissed him until he couldn’t think.

“Hey, Dike’s back at Brigade,” Harry said.

“Outstanding,” Dick said.

*

Long before they moved in together, Dick knew it was a terrible idea. He made all kinds of excuses to himself – Lew was easy to live with, sharing an apartment was fiscally responsible, Lew had stolen approximately seventy percent of his clothes and he would never get them back otherwise – but the truth was that he just wanted to do it. Dick didn’t often do things just because he wanted to, and he didn’t do things that were bad for him. Someday he’d have to give it up and he promised himself he would do it gladly when the time came. Not now. Not when he had Lew to himself all the time, laughing over their stupid shared jokes and the dog and their awful classes.

It had always struck him as a little silly to fantasize when there were so many other more pressing things to think about in the real present, although of course he had his dreams of the future: a nice house somewhere quiet, a job that tasked his body and his brain, children and holidays and pets and family meals, all the small pleasurable things that he imagined would make up a good life. His partner in it all remained blank, though if he’d thought much about it he supposed the blank would be vaguely woman-shaped. He’d gone on a few dates with women in college and enjoyed talking to them, finding out about their lives, but the moment he tried to see things going any further, it was as if his brain put up a door that slammed shut in his face. He was kissed once—kissed objectively well, he thought afterward, the kind of thing he might really like if he were more attracted to the kisser. It was not prudishness or self-consciousness that kept him from participating in the kinds of games his friends enjoyed with each other, but rather that he knew there was something, some extra thing, that he required, some depth of love that he needed, and if he didn’t have that he just didn’t care.

Looking back on it, he knew it had made him smug. He was always so clear-headed and firm; he hadn’t thought anyone could undo him the way Lew undid him. And he was undone, there was no doubt about that. He absolutely lit up when Lew was around, and everyone knew it.

“Bring Lewis to Thanksgiving,” his mother said.

“If he doesn’t have anything to do with his family, I will,” he said. Lew hadn’t mentioned Thanksgiving or his family at all and Dick didn’t want to pry. It was one sure way to get Lew to clam up and start sulking. 

“Well, ask him now,” she said. “I’ll wait.”

He pressed his phone against his chest and decided his mother wouldn’t appreciate him shouting at Lew across the apartment, despite the fact that Burt had him pinned to the floor. “Walk time?” he whispered, which was cheating, but Burt jumped off him immediately and he appreciated being able to breathe.

He hadn’t seen Lew all day; it was Saturday and he’d gone out the night before, so there was a chance he had passed out somewhere on his floor or thrown up in the closet again and fallen asleep there. Tapping on the door first, Dick nudged it open a little when there was no response. “Hey, Lew,” he said.

“Mmm,” Lew said, which was encouraging.

“My mother wants to know if you have Thanksgiving plans and if not, do you want to come home with me,” he said. The room smelled weird, like – something flowery, and something else thick and strange and familiar at the same time.

“Yeah, good, yes,” Lew mumbled, right as Dick’s eyes adjusted to the dark of the room and he realized there was another person in the bed.

“I – oh,” Dick said, shutting the door too hard. He stood outside it, staring at the gently warped wooden floor for a moment before he remembered his mother was still on the phone. “Um. I think, I think he said yes.”

“Good,” his mother said. “Find out what kind of pie he likes best and dad will make it.”

“I don’t know. Uh. If he likes pie,” Dick said. He realized he was still standing outside Lew’s bedroom and shook himself, shoving his feet into a pair of boots and snapping his fingers to get Burt to come with him. He walked three blocks, listening to his mother and discouraging Burt from lovingly sniffing every single trashcan, without his jacket or gloves or even a scarf, and finally had to go back inside when he was shivering too hard to talk.

Lew was up and making coffee, squinting in the light, when Dick came back in. It never failed to surprise Dick how slight Lew actually was. In his everyday clothes or his uniform, he came across as somehow bigger, but in his shorts and t-shirt he was skinny, almost birdlike. His hair stuck straight up and he looked ridiculous with an unlit cigarette hanging out of his mouth, but Dick felt sick suddenly with love at the sight of him. Or sick from something else, maybe, something that resembled humiliation.

“Don’t worry, she left,” Lew said, waving at the bedroom. “Sorry about that.”

Dick bit back whatever he might have said and stayed silent, unclipping the dog’s leash and taking off his boots.

“Did you say something about Thanksgiving?” Lew asked, opening the window a crack and lighting his cigarette.

“Yeah. What kind of pie do you like?”

“Lemon,” Lew said with a small smile that seemed directed inward. “But that’s not very Thanksgivingish. I guess…pecan.”

“Are you up for a Winters family holiday?” Dick kept his voice light, the same as always.

“Sure, why not.” Lew turned the smile on him. “It would probably do me good.”

*

There was no snow. Dick was glad for it because he’d driven to Lancaster too many times wondering if this would be the time he’d end up off the road, but the rain was starting to get old. Sometimes it felt like he’d asked for it by hating the sand so much.

“I’m sorry you had to, uh,” Lew said about halfway through the drive. “Encounter the girl who stayed over the other night.”

Dick turned on his blinker and switched lanes to avoid the spray from a five-wheeler.

“It’s been a while, you know,” Lew said. “Since before the divorce went through. I figured I might try to get back on the horse.”

“You don’t have to defend yourself,” Dick lied. “It’s your life.”

“I just, I know you’re not really comfortable with that kind of thing.” Lew fiddled with the bag he had stuffed between his feet on the floor of the car. “You seemed…rattled.”

“Just surprised, that’s all.” Dick flipped on the radio. “Can you find something?”

With the efficiency of a general, Dick’s mother had hugged them both, taken Burt to pee on the front lawn, asked Dick to carry two extra chairs in from the foyer, and gotten them settled into Dick’s old room with their bags unpacked before Dick could so much as introduce Lew. Lew looked taken aback but curious by the entire process and Dick wondered what holiday gatherings were like with his family. He’d met Stanhope Nixon once and hadn’t much cared for him except the bit of Lew he could see in him – the sly sense of humor without Lew’s deprecation, the desire to share wealth with everyone that came out as generosity in Lew and ostentatiousness in his father. The Nixons amused each other, Dick thought, but it was hard to tell whether they liked each other.

Ann had come in to greet him and watch the two of them trip over each other trying to get their things put away with the dog jumping over everything. “Can I take him outside for a while before dinner?” she asked from the doorway.

“Sure,” Lew said.

“I’ll go with you. We could use a stretch,” Dick added. “And I can protect you from the vicious beast.”

Burt rolled around on his back, ecstatic. Ann patted her knees and said, “Come here, vicious beast,” and Burt leaped up and bounded toward her. She ran, laughing, down the stairs.

“I assume you’re not the only teetotaler in the house,” Lew said, pulling out his flask and setting it on the nightstand.

“No, my parents don’t drink either,” Dick said, eyeing the flask. He finished pushing his suitcase under the bed and stood up, dusting his hands on his pants. He watched Lew take out a sweatshirt and then refold everything around it, rolling underwear and socks and t-shirts up military-style. Afterward he was never really sure what prompted him to finally ask – maybe it was the woman in Lew’s room, or maybe it was being in his parents’ house with his mother downstairs making a salad in the kitchen. “Nix, do you ever think about giving it up?”

Lew looked up mid-roll. “What, drinking?”

Dick nodded.

“Why? It’s not gonna kill me like cigarettes. I’d give those up first.”

“You don’t think it hurts you as much as the cigarettes?” He started to fiddle with the knickknacks on top of his old bureau. His mother had put down an old blue flannel runner and placed a bunch of her milk glass on top of it. It wasn’t something teenaged Dick Winters would have wanted in his room, but then this wasn’t really his room anymore. His old twin bed had been replaced by a king, and the shelves in his closet were full of board games that had once been in the hall closet. Suddenly he was felt very bleak. Where was he going? He was a guest in his parents’ house, a guest in his friends’ lives. He belonged nowhere, had no idea what he was going to do or where he wanted to be. The future spread out before him without any light.

“It’s just booze,” Lew said. “I know you don’t know anything about it, but I’m here to tell you the liver is a lot heartier than the lungs. You’re such an American. You know we’re screwed up about alcohol, don’t you? Europeans have the right idea.”

“Europeans bring secret flasks just in case their hosts don’t have anything to drink?” Dick asked.

Lew threw his last t-shirt into the suitcase with some force. “European hosts would have something to drink,” he snapped. “What is this about, Dick? You’ve never pulled this before.”

“It’s about,” he began. “It’s about me wanting you to be all right.”

“I am all right,” Lew said. “Listen, you’ve been weird since the other day and I already said I was sorry. Not everybody can be as damn perfect as you are. Have you finally figured that out? Because I don’t want to live with someone looking over my shoulder at my mistakes all the time. If you’re becoming my father you can get the hell out.”

Stung, Dick opened his mouth just as Ann came in again. “Burt would really like to go outside,” she said, with that edge of almost-too-snotty that came with being thirteen and not knowing how far sarcasm was allowed to go.

“Be right there,” he said, careful not to look at Lew or he’d really get into it.

He and Ann and Burt ran around the farmhouse and the old barn, three of a kind, until Edith called for them and said dinner was ready. The rain had stopped in Lancaster a few days earlier and what was on the ground had turned to thin crunching white ice in the dips in the field. Ann pulled him by the arm and made him stomp on every patch they found, which was really very satisfying, while Burt dug around for field mice. The fast-dying light and the fresh cold air sapped away all Dick’s anger and turned him melancholy instead. It was probably past time for him to let Lew go, he thought. He had always told himself, hadn’t he, that he would move on when he had to? So he would move on. That bleak feeling had returned but he felt better able to deal with it now that Lew wasn’t in the room with him. Things had been bleak before and he had managed. This was not special. He only had to work hard and it would pass.

Lew was on the porch with his arms crossed over his chest, sitting on the swing with his feet kicked up. “Hey there, bub,” he said to Burt, ruffling his ears. “Did you pee on everything?”

“He ate an acorn,” Ann said importantly, “but Dick got most of it out of his mouth.”

She went inside and Lew stood, waiting while Dick removed his boots at the door. “Dick,” he said.

“Let’s eat,” Dick said, padding inside in his socks. His father had gotten home from work at some point while he and Ann were in the field, and they hugged while all five of them tried to squeeze through the kitchen into the dining room.

He wasn’t hungry, but knew better than to say so. It was not that his mother would be angry, but she might take him aside and ask if he was all right, and he thought he’d rather be in Afghanistan again. Still, he could feel her eyes on him while he took exactly seven Brussels sprouts, and he gave her his most reassuring smile as she teased Lew about never writing to his family during the war.

“Dick wrote to us twice a week,” she said, “and it wasn’t enough.”

“Oh, my parents were more than happy not to hear from me,” Lew said. He had leaned back in his seat like he wanted to smoke.

“I find that hard to believe,” Edith said.

“Well, I was a little busy keeping him out of trouble.” Lew nodded toward Dick.

Ann snorted. “Please.”

“Ann,” Edith said.

“Your brother has a knack for getting shot at,” Lew said. Under better circumstances Dick would have kicked him under the table, but right now he thought he’d probably do some damage.

His mother set her fork and knife down. “Really.”

Dick raised his eyebrows and took a drink of water. “I never did get shot though,” he said. “Not a scratch on me.” He could see Lew was getting ready to explain in detail how it was not for lack of trying, and added, “I can help you clean up, mom.”

“Tell me about him getting shot at,” Ann said. “Did you get to shoot anyone?”

“Not even a snake,” Lew said. “They gave me two hundred bullets when I deployed and I brought back one hundred ninety-nine. I dropped one out of a helicopter while I was cleaning dust out of my clip and they nearly court-martialed me.”

Dick’s father ate and watched Lew in silence, the way he did everything. Lew was a guest, which meant his parents would never say anything against him, but Dick wondered what they really thought of him. Everything about Lew said he wasn’t from around here – his pea coat and scarf, his expensive shoes and watch and cologne, his cigarettes, but most of all the way he spoke, sardonic, embellished for humor’s sake, using his hands. Ann was young enough to catch his meaning without taking him literally, and Dick was used to him and could volley right back, but it seemed likely his straightforward, honest father would view him as an alien.

Later, after he did the dishes while Ann taught Lew how to play Pokemon, Dick searched the closet in his room to find extra blankets and sheets so he could sleep on the couch. His mother, who had dried the dishes while he washed and rinsed, had asked him about Lew: did he wake up early, or late? Did he like breakfast? Would he want to go to the Thanksgiving service with them in the morning? Would he and Dick be comfortable with only one blanket? Dick realized his mother assumed they’d be sleeping in the same bed and blushed so furiously he had to go outside after he was done washing to cool off.

“I think we’re going to play a game in the living room,” Lew said. He sat on the edge of the bed, looking like he’d rather be almost anywhere else. “Your sister is very excited because most of her games require at least four players, and she’s sick of Scrabble.”

“She’s going to try to rope us into Monopoly,” Dick said. “You’re the guest, so you get to choose. Don’t choose Monopoly.”

“Maybe I feel like talking about fake property trading for sixteen continuous hours,” Lew said. “Did you ever think of that?”

Dick threw a pillow at him, knocking some books off the shelf along the way. As he walked past Lew to pick them up, Lew caught his arm.

“Dick,” he said quietly. He looked up, eyes unhappy but clear. “I know I need to stop.”

“Okay.” Dick blew out a breath. “Okay. Good.”

“I don’t know how,” Lew said.

“I’ll help you,” Dick said.

“No.” Lew shook his head, pulling on Dick’s arm until he was standing almost between Lew’s legs. “I’ll fail and fail and fail until you can’t stand the sight of me. You can’t help me. I need you to just pretend like it’s not happening until I’ve pulled myself out of it.”

He looked down at Lew’s upturned face and almost – almost ran his fingers over the darkened line of his jaw, the red of his mouth. Lew was flushed and his pink cheeks and his pointed nose made him look very, very young from Dick’s vantage point. “Anything that will make it easier on you,” he said.

Lew sighed and leaned forward, resting his forehead on Dick’s stomach. “Can you get me out of this board game thing?” he mumbled.

Dick’s hands hovered over Lew’s head for a second, frozen in alarm, before he let one of them pat his hair. “This is your punishment for comparing me to your father.”

“God, that was awful,” Lew groaned. “I deserve Monopoly.”

“I shouldn’t have gone after you like that,” Dick said. He was struck simultaneously by the urge to slide both hands into Lew’s hair and see how he liked it and by the realization of what they must look like right now to a wandering sister or parent, and pulled back with a final awkward tap on Lew’s shoulder.

“You know you don’t have to sleep on the couch,” Lew said, fiddling with the pile of sheets. “We can share. I mean, the bed is huge and we’ve shared before. Unless you’re dying to sleep in the living room.”

“It’s fine,” he said, but the couch was three inches shorter than he was, and he put the sheets away. Burt slept between them until around midnight, when he migrated to the floor, and in the morning Dick woke with Lew’s hand on his back like he had tried to make sure Dick was still there in the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maharib Kalay Valley is a completely made-up place and battle. It's very loosely based on the Battle of Barawala Kalay Valley, but I didn't really want to use a real-life situation.


	3. Chapter 3

During finals week, what had begun as a little tickle in the back of his throat grew quickly into a cold and then into bronchitis. He’d had bronchitis during OCS and again in Afghanistan, and was used to ignoring it until someone threatened him with a court-martial if he didn’t go to the doctor. This time the threat came from his Business Accounting professor, who could not court-martial him but did say he would kidnap Dick and toss him into the university clinic himself if he didn’t go on his own.

It was Lew who finally forced him to go, as he had the first two times.

“You’re going to give yourself a hernia,” he said during breakfast, right before Dick’s last final.

“I know,” Dick said when he could speak again. He had coughed hard enough to throw up the night before, and his stomach ached. “It’s not as bad when I have something else to concentrate on.”

Lew gave him a narrow look. “You know what, you’re never going to go to the doctor unless I make you. We’re going today, after your final.”

Dick opened his mouth to say that he would go soon enough and there was no need to treat him like a recalcitrant child, but he suddenly remembered Lew recruiting Lipton to drag him bodily to the medic’s tent, and how furious Roe was when Dick confessed he’d been sick three weeks. There was a chance – a tiny, a very very slight chance – that Lew might be a little bit right.

“Fine,” he said.

“I’m waiting outside while you take your test,” Lew said. “I don’t trust you.”

Accordingly, when Dick finished his exam and walked out of the room into the hallway, Lew was sitting on one of the padded benches, texting someone.

“Harry says you need to take better care of yourself,” he said. “And if you try to back out tonight he’s going to beat all your Pacman high scores.”

Once a month or so, Harry and Kitty Welsh drove down from Wilkes-Barre for a weekend with Dick and Lew. Speirs and Lipton sometimes joined them, but Speirs was in Germany until January and Lipton was with his family. Now that only Speirs was still stationed in Kentucky and Lipton was in West Virginia, their only interaction was during these weekends, which they mostly spent at the bar a block away from Dick and Lew’s apartment. They liked it better than any of the other bars around the campus, which were always full of loud undergrads. PJ’s was a townie bar, small and comfortable and dark, the way Lew said a bar should be. Dick didn’t care – he was there for the company and the cheeseburger – but he did like the green and mahogany of the back room with the pool table and dartboard, and he found himself there with Lew at least once a week. Lew’s attempts to teach him how to play pool were so far unsuccessful, but Dick was the Pacman champion. Harry’s threats didn’t concern him.

He fidgeted in the waiting room, trying idly to read a _Time_ magazine.

“You really are a little kid when it comes to the doctor’s office,” Lew said. “Do they have to give you a lollipop when you get your shots?”

“I just think it’s stupid to sit around waiting for them to tell me what’s wrong, that’s all,” Dick said, and went into a fit of coughing that lasted so long all the nurses behind the counter glared suspiciously at him.

“We’re not in the military anymore,” Lew said. “Nobody’s going to accuse you of malingering.”

When the nurse came to get him, there was an instant where he almost asked Lew to come too. But Lew waved him on and he felt ridiculous, and even more ridiculous when he was sitting shirtless with a stethoscope pressed to his chest, trying to be a good breather.

“Sounds like a crackling fire up in there,” the doctor said. She seemed amused by how uncomfortable he was.

“Hmm,” he said, wishing he’d dragged Lew in the room anyway.

“I’m going to give you antibiotics and some cough syrup with codeine for that hacking,” she said. “I could hear you all the way back in my office.”

“Codeine,” he said. “I don’t know about that.”

“Trust me,” she said, “you and anyone in your house will sleep better.”

He wondered if he’d kept Lew awake the night before – Lew hadn’t said anything, although he’d stopped smoking in the apartment and bought cough drops when he had first noticed Dick was sick. Poor Lew, he thought. No wonder he was so insistent on getting Dick to the doctor; he was probably annoyed to death. Dick had planned on chucking the cough syrup as soon as they left the building, but the thought of Lew, patient and willing to trudge all the way downstairs into the freezing wind fifteen times a day so Dick wouldn’t be aggravated by the slightest bit of cigarette smoke, changed his mind.

“Oh,” he said an hour later. “I’m feeling…Lew, I think I’m regretting things.”

He was in the middle of trying to open a jar of peanut butter, and it was taking a very long time. Finally he wrenched it open and stared wonderingly at it, then scooped out a bit and let Burt lick it off his fingers.

From the couch, Lew said, “Give me your phone so you don’t drunk dial anyone,” and god, he loved Lew so much. He wondered if Lew knew that. He wanted to talk about it, but most of all he wanted to be by Lew and he really loved him. He left the peanut butter on the counter and stumbled to the couch, where he sat with a heavy and pleasurable sigh. So nice. There was a thump and Dick turned his head to see that the dog had dragged the open peanut butter jar to the ground and was licking it.

“Well, at least you’re not coughing,” Lew said.

“I kept you _awake_ ,” Dick said. “All night.”

“You’ve said that like six times,” Lew said. “Why are you worried about keeping me awake?”

It struck Dick suddenly that it was an excellent idea to lie down with his head in Lew’s lap and watch television that way. It combined many of the things he loved best: Lew, and lying down, and watching the news, and watching the news with Lew.

“Oh,” Lew said when he kicked his shoes off, stretched out, and rested his head on Lew’s thigh. The denim was rough against his face but Lew was warm and smelled nice and it was really just about perfect. Then Lew put a hand on his arm and left it there, and it was as perfect as it could get.

He did have to concede, however, that he could not focus on the television because it was sideways, and that was upsetting.

“You all right?” Lew asked.

“Can’t see,” he sighed, and rolled over so his face was buried in Lew’s hip.

“Jesus, you’re burning up,” Lew said, and Dick felt a cold hand on his forehead. It hurt his skin and he winced. “Sorry. Poor sick idiot. I should have made you go to the doctor sooner.”

“I’m fine,” he croaked, and the next thing he knew Harry’s voice was waking him. It seemed like Harry’s voice was always waking him.

“He’s cozy,” Harry said.

 _Who’s cozy?_ Dick wondered, and then thought, _It’s me. I’m cozy_. Lew’s arm was slung over his side, like it was keeping him from falling off the couch.

“He’s high as a kite,” Lew said.

“Oh, Mama Nixon,” Harry said. “You know the boys used to call you that?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Lew said. “You get the battalion one damn Play-Station and all of a sudden they’re imagining you in an apron.”

“It wasn’t because of that, it was because of him,” Harry said. “Papa Winters. They knew what was going on.”

“Harry.”

“Come on, Nix,” Harry said. “The two of you have always treated each other like sweethearts.”

“Yeah, well, we’re not.”

“Could be, though.”

“Look, someday he’s going to find some nice girl and marry her, and have a bunch of kids, and it’ll be great,” Lew said.

“You’re certainly not a nice girl, but you know he could always marry you and have a bunch of kids. I’m just saying,” Harry said. Dick heard the squeak of the chair as Harry stood, and the slap of his hand on Nix’s shoulder. “I was going to see if you wanted to come out early, but you stay here and take care of your boy.”

“I’ll be down in a little while,” Lew said. “He’s not my boy, Harry.”

“Whatever you say,” Harry said, shutting the door with a click loud enough to start Dick fully awake. He had been in and out with his mouth open a little around the edge of Lew’s flannel shirt.

“Nix,” he mumbled, rolling onto his back. Lew’s arm tightened around him and then relaxed when he shifted so he wouldn’t fall. “I think I’m sick.”

“Nice of you to notice,” Lew said. “I’m gonna make you some soup, okay?”

“Not hungry,” he said, shivering now that he had moved away from Lew’s warmth.

“I know.” Lew patted his chest. “But it’ll feel nice on your throat. Come on, blankets and soup.”

“Why don’t you go out with Harry?” he protested, sitting up and letting Lew lead him to his bedroom.

“Why would I do that? I can’t beat Kitty at anything until she’s had a few.” Lew pointed to the closet. “Pajamas.”

“You’re bossy,” Dick said, pulling his pajamas off the hook on the back of his closet door.

“Now I know you’re stoned,” Lew said. “If you were sober, you’d be able to appreciate the irony.”

“No, I like it,” Dick said. He was able to pull his sweatshirt off without toppling over, but unbuttoning his shirt proved impossible. Lew let him try for a while and then did it himself while Dick patted his hands.

“You like it, huh?” Lew asked, undoing his cuffs and tugging the shirt off.

“It’s nice. You take care of me.”

Lew leaned against the closet door and watched him struggle out of his pants. “I didn’t know it was something you liked,” he said softly. “I didn’t know you even noticed.”

He nodded. “Wouldn’t like it from anyone else, but I love you, so it feels good.”

Lew was quiet as Dick attempted to put both feet into one leg of his pajamas. It occurred to him, after a few minutes, that he had said something he wouldn’t ordinarily say. _But why?_ he thought. It was a good thing, a good feeling, and he hated lying, and he loved Lew, and he loved everything Lew did.

“Here,” Lew said, guiding his foot to the right place. “Let’s get you some soup, and then I think I’ll go out with Harry and Kitty after all.”

“Soup is nice,” he said, but he was asleep with his head on the table before Lew was finished.

He woke at midnight in his own bed, coughing, and staggered out into the kitchen to take his antibiotics and glare at the cough medicine. His entire body felt dragged down, as if gravity were urging him to curl up on the floor and fall asleep again. No more of you, he thought, although when he started to cough again and miserably weighed it against blithering idiocy, blithering idiocy almost won.    

*

“I think I’m going to go up to Lancaster tonight,” Dick said the next day. “I’ll probably come back a little after New Year’s.”

“Wow,” Lew said. He had been staring out the window, drinking his coffee. “All right. Will you be okay to drive?”

Dick felt himself flush and turned away. “Yeah. I’m not taking anymore of that cough syrup.”

“It did hit you pretty hard.” Lew smiled into his coffee cup. “It took us a while to get you into bed.”

“You weigh five thousand pounds,” Harry mumbled from the couch.

“Oh, leave him alone, he’s sick,” Kitty said. “You really were basically like a corpse, though.”

He was too mortified to respond, and retreated into his room to finish packing.

Ann was disappointed that he didn’t bring Burt, and Dick realized when his mother asked how Lew was doing that he had no idea what Lew’s Christmas plans were. It hurt him to think of Lew and Burt alone in the apartment. His imagination lowered the temperature about twenty degrees and he could see the two of them huddled together with no Christmas decorations or holiday food, while Dick was tucked away in a nice warm house making paper chains for the tree while they watched old Mickey Mouse Christmas shorts. But he also couldn’t make himself text Lew to ask, and since he was always the one who texted Lew first, the days went by without any communication at all.

On Christmas Eve, Dick finally checked his phone and saw that Lew had texted. It made his stomach twist and he forced himself to wait to read it until he was getting ready for bed. _The dog misses Ann_ , it said, accompanied by a picture of Burt wearing a Santa hat and looking abashed. The background of the picture was not their apartment, and Dick wondered where he was. There were Christmas lights in the background, so at least that eased Dick’s conscience somewhat, but he wondered, with another sharp twist, who was taking the dog out for runs at five in the morning. The thought of how much he was going to miss Burt almost overwhelmed him, but he took a deep breath – three deep breaths – ten deep breaths – and it was still there, threatening to rise up again, but he had it beat.

He didn’t respond, and didn’t respond, and didn’t respond until Lew actually called him the day after New Year’s. In all the time he’d known Lew, he’d never spoken on the phone with him, and seeing his number on the screen surprised him enough that he took the call without thinking about it.

“Who’s this?” he asked. “I know it’s not Lewis Nixon.”

“I’m calling on behalf of Burtholamew Nixon,” Lew said. Wherever he was, it sounded windy. “He’s stolen seven bags of pretzels and has been placed in a canine detention center, and as his lawyer–”

Dick was laughing before he could help it. “Are you at home? The apartment, I mean?”

“Yeah. We’re bored and hoping you’re sick of Lancaster.”

“We? You and the felon and who else?”

“It’s just us,” Lew said. “And Ike. And, I think, Ike’s latest girlfriend.”

“Fat Helga or Skinny Helga?” he asked.

“Fat.” Dick heard the click of his lighter and the soft drag of a cigarette. “I didn’t know there was a Skinny Helga.”

“No, that’s Skinny Helga. You haven’t seen Fat Helga yet,” Dick said. “You’d know if you had.”

“Honestly I think Helga might be a boy,” Lew said. “Anyway. When are you coming home?”

Dick, sitting cross-legged on the bed in his room, stared down at the covers and started to pick at them. “I don’t know. I guess I could be there tonight.”

“Good,” Lew said. “Now, the real reason I called is that I don’t know where you put the dog food.”

“See you in a few hours, Lew,” he said, and went to tell his mother he was leaving. He was already regretting it by the time he’d packed everything and gotten on the road, but that was what talking with Lew always did to him. It made him feel like everything else was unimportant except the two of them in their own bubble. Until the day Lew had brought someone home, he’d remained in that bubble and had thought – stupidly – that Lew was there too, and he hadn’t allowed himself to think that anything might change. Lew didn’t seem to want it to change either, if he was acting like nothing was different, and Dick knew he had to do something or he’d be stuck in this pattern forever: Lew moving on with his life while Dick clung to him and tried to keep things exactly the same. If he wasn’t careful he’d end up living in the spare bedroom of Lew’s life forever.

Burt greeted him like they had been parted for a decade, winding in and out between his feet until he gave up and sat down on the floor, hugging his squirming little body. When he stood again Lew was too close, and he had the sudden feeling he might be about to hug him. But he only gripped Dick’s shoulder and shook it a little and said, “Hey, let’s go to PJ’s. Kitty beat your high score.”

“She did _what_ ,” he said, and grabbed his keys.

*

Shortly before the spring semester began, Ron Speirs came back from Germany and he and Lipton drove up for a visit. They both looked the same; Dick wondered why he was surprised at that. It had only been a few months since the last time he’d seen either of them. The military seemed both years removed from him and, in his dreams, also upfront and in his face. The habits he had formed in the military had fallen away with a rapidity that bothered him. They had always joked about brainwashing, but there were positive things, things he associated with discipline, that he thought he had taken away from the experience, and he worried that that simply wasn’t the case. Lew, who had run from Fort Campbell the moment his discharge paperwork came through like he was afraid it would be rescinded, didn’t seem to find it at all disturbing.

“The only thing I want to keep with me is a reminder that whatever I’m doing, at least I’m not fighting in a war anymore,” he said. “I know there are worse jobs out there, but at least they would be mine to take or leave.”

“I just hate feeling like I wasted all that time and didn’t learn anything,” Dick said.

“Aw, don’t look at it like that,” Lew said. “You also got a great travel package.”

Speirs had always reminded him of a blade. Not that he was given to describing people that way, generally, but Speirs was an exception. He was offputting at first and then quickly a loyal friend. Lew and Dick had talked often about how weird it was that they liked Speirs so much. It was difficult not to like Lip, but Speirs was an acquired taste, and Lew wasn’t much for acquired tastes. He and Dick both dismissed people fast. Dick guessed neither of them had ever quite dismissed Speirs, who was frighteningly competent as well as frighteningly many other things.

When he was in town, he and Lew played pool with the long-term intensity of a game of chess, breaking only to smoke and get another drink. Dick tried to be true to his word and did not pay attention to whether Lew was drinking or not – although sometimes he couldn’t help but notice, and he refused to be disappointed if Lew got whiskey and not soda or water, or happy when he realized Lew had stopped putting anything in his coffee. Lew would do what he would do, in his own way and in his own time, and Dick was all right with that. He found, in fact, that he loved Lew even more fervently for it, and wondered with only a little exasperation if there was anything that could make him stop.

“What are you up to, Lip?” Dick asked, when they were the only two at the table. Kitty and Harry were up at the bar getting more drinks, and Speirs was locked in battle with Lew at the pool table.

“Oh, you know. School this, school that,” Lip said. “I don’t remember my undergrad being this hard. I mean, obviously a master’s is going to be harder, but it’s really different. Makes me wonder if I’m even cut out for anything outside the Army, you know?”

Dick nodded. “Yeah. Sometimes I wonder the same thing. But then I think about what I’d be doing now…”

“Paperwork,” Lip said.

“ _Paperwork_.” Dick glared down at his French fries.

“Can’t stay with the boys forever.” Lip watched Lew rack, smiling a little.

“You were a real natural leader,” Dick said. “It surprised me that you got out.”

“I got to the point where I realized I wanted something quiet,” Lip said. “It’s good when you’re young and a little crazy, but after ten years you start to wonder which one’s gonna be your last mission. I joined right after September 11th and the war just never stopped.”

That was the great thing about Lip: he and Dick were almost always on the same page. One of Dick’s first acts as XO had been to sign the paperwork for Lip to go to OCS, and when he came back four months later, Lew did some finagling to make sure he was Dick’s lieutenant. He had never worked with anyone who understood him more clearly, other than Lew.

Lew wandered over to grab his coat and his cigarettes just as Lip asked, “What about you? I don’t even know what your plans are. I feel like I’m out of the loop.”

“I’m actually thinking about moving on after this semester is over,” Dick said slowly, pushing away his basket of fries. He couldn’t look at Lew. “I might move back in with my parents while I figure out what kind of business I want to try out.”

“Oh yeah? Do you have any ideas?”

“Not just yet,” he said. “But I think I’ve gotten all I can out of business school for now.”

He could see Lip was on the verge of asking Lew the same question, but Lew had already put on his jacket and pulled his cigarettes from the inside pocket. That was something he had always loved about Lew, the way he kept everything on the inside pocket of his jacket and took forever to get his wallet out when they were at the store. A terrible upwelling of loss, like the one he’d felt when he thought about his Burt-less future, threatened to surface. He shoved it down without mercy and hoped it would stay there for a while, at least until he was alone.

“Hey, finish my game, will you?” Lew said to Lip, and bent down to murmur in Dick’s ear. “Come outside and tell me what the hell is going on.”

Feeling sick, Dick followed him out the back door, into the alley behind the bar. There was wintery sludge everywhere, half covering the trash but not covering the smell of the dumpster, and he thought briefly that it was appropriate for the conversation he was about to have. Lew nudged him until they were far enough away from the trash that they could breathe properly.

“Well?” Lew asked.

“ _Well_ ,” Dick said. “I’ve been thinking I should move out in May.”

Lew stared at him for a little while, eyes narrowed. “Did I do something to make you angry? Whatever it is, I’m really sorry.”

“You didn’t,” Dick said, shivering. “It’s just–”

“Is it–” Lew put a hand on the brick wall and then snatched it away with a grimace, wiping his palm on his pants. “Is it the drinking? Can we talk about it first?”

“It’s not that,” he said. “I promise. I told you I would back off and I have.”

“Then what the hell, Dick?” Lew said, his arms thrown wide. “What the hell are you doing?”

Dick had seen him angry like this before, he realized, but at first he couldn’t quite remember when. Then it came to him: it was when he’d gotten the letter from Kathy saying she was leaving. Dick had met Kathy and he’d seen how Lew acted the moment they were separated from each other, so Lew’s explosive fury baffled him somewhat before he understood that most of it had to do with the dog. Lew loved that dog. He loved her so much he campaigned to have her combat trained so she could go with him to Afghanistan.

“Look, I know I kind of sprang this on you,” he said, “but it’s for the best. You need your own space and so do I.”

“I knew it,” Lew said. “I knew you were pissed at me for bringing someone home.”

“I wasn’t,” Dick said, but at Lew’s look he sighed and said, “Fine, I was. But not because – I mean, you’re allowed to do whatever you want. I wasn’t judging you for it. I just – look, you know why I was unhappy about it.”

“Actually, I don’t,” Lew said. “I’m pretty sure she enjoyed herself, and I called her afterward. She just wanted to have a good time, and I’m good at that. You have to know I’m not exactly saving myself for marriage, Dick.”

“That’s not why,” Dick took a deep breath. “It’s because I – don’t you remember what I said when I had all that cough syrup? It upset you, I know it did.”

“You said about a thousand things that day,” Lew said. “You told me you wanted to grow a beard because, and I quote, it would be like a pillow on your face.”

“No,” Dick said, rubbing his hand on his forehead. “I said I loved you.”

Lew was quiet for a beat before he choked out, “You also – you also said you loved the couch. Repeatedly.”

“The couch is all right,” he said. “But about you, I meant that. I thought you knew.”

“I didn’t,” Lew said. He looked stricken.

“Well, now you know,” Dick said, feeling like he had taken a step out of reality. “I can’t feel like – like this, and be a real friend to you. It’s not fair. I need to get over it and I can’t do that if I’m with you all the time.”

“Are you serious? Do you really – do you love me?” Lew’s face was a study in pain. Dick wondered how he had reached this moment, where his best friend looked like he’d been punched because he loved him. He remembered feeling like this whenever he lost his temper, as if he wasn’t exactly sure how it had happened although he was the one who had gotten himself there. And he supposed he could have said no, or he could have avoided the question and straightened his shoulders and plowed through it. He could have done any number of things, but in the end he could only be Dick Winters.

“Yes,” he said.

“And you were just going to ride off into the sunset without even asking me.”

“Asking you,” Dick said, feeling stupid. Lew was looking up at him from under his lashes, shifting around to stay warm, and Dick thought there must be something he was missing.

“If you were the only one,” Lew said. For a split second, he wondered who Lew was talking about, and was glad he caught himself fast enough not to say it out loud. And then all the nerves he hadn’t felt when he had told Lew he loved him tumbled onto him at once and he was breathing too fast.

“All right,” he said, his voice shaking. “Am I the only one?”

Lew grabbed Dick's hands and began to rub them briskly. “No," he said, busying himself with his task and not looking at Dick.

“I didn’t know,” he said.

“Of course you didn’t.” Lew shook his head, smiling with such warm exasperation that Dick felt humbled by it, the way he always did when he realized how much Lew gave to him. “Dick, I wake up before noon now just so I can have breakfast with you. Do you know what I’m sacrificing?”

“I didn’t – Lew, I didn’t know,” he said again, and Lew moved closer to him just as someone opened the door behind them and stood by Lew, shielding his cigarette against the wind as he tried to light it. Lew turned his head at the noise and the man raised his cigarette in greeting.

“Fucking cold,” he said.

“Yeah,” Lew said carefully. “We should go in.”

“We should go home,” Dick said. “Right now.”

Lew’s thumb stroked over his knuckles. “Should we?” he asked.

Dick nodded, and found himself being led home, their fingers linked together. He had never really held anyone’s hand before and he was blushing like crazy – anyone, anyone could see his hand in Lew’s hand and _know_ – but he liked it so much there was nothing that could make him let go. Across three streets, teeming with people, he held onto Lew’s hand and wondered what they were going home to do – if this was real, if he was wrong or he had misinterpreted Lew’s words, if the others were going to wonder where they had gone and come to find them at the apartment.

Burt galloped over to greet them when they walked through the door, but Lew told him so sternly to go lie down that for once, he obeyed with no follow-up. He curled up in his living room bed beside Ike, who had commandeered it, and licked Ike’s head for a while.

Dick stood with his hand on the kitchen island and tried to slow his breathing, tried to figure out how to situate his limbs. Lew, too close to him but too far away to touch, rubbed the back of his neck and stared down at the marble countertop.

“I really want to kiss you right now,” Lew said, looking up at him uncertainly.

“Well,” he said, “why don’t you try and see if you like it?”

Lew stroked Dick’s lips with his thumb for a moment and then gently urged them to part a little before he kissed him. The whole thing startled him – the slow intensity and the heat of Lew’s mouth, and the way everything in him went unsteady in a rush. If anyone had asked him what was lacking about his previous kisses he couldn’t have explained it until this moment, when it was Lew kissing him. Every inch of his body was bright with feeling: his eyes wincing a little in the grayish-white January light from the windows behind him, his palms resting on Lew’s flannel shirt, the skin on the side of his face and his neck where Lew was touching him, his cold wet toes inside his shoes, his stomach full of pleasurable nervous darts, but most of all Lew’s mouth hot against his.

When Lew pulled back and licked his lips, Dick found himself leaning in for more, not wanting to stop.

“Jesus,” Lew said, stroking the side of his face. “Look at you. You really want this.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Dick said, tugging at him impatiently. Lew stared up at him for a second in wonder and then his hands were in Dick’s hair and he was really kissing him – not slow or tentative but overwhelming, greedy like he’d just found exactly what he wanted and couldn’t hold back. Dick made some excited noise in the back of his throat and Lew seemed to take that as an invitation to hold him tighter and to kiss him with an energy Dick hadn’t known he possessed. It was better than he had ever imagined, so much better; Lew was so warm and beloved against him, genuine and unrestrained in pleasure. This reality, where Lew wanted him, blatantly wanted him, was different from his dreams, in which Lew was always a little cold, needing to be coaxed. Not at all like the real Lew, who didn’t even pause when he tugged Dick’s coat off and tossed it on the floor, didn’t slow for a moment even when he backed Dick up to the wall. His fingers gently, very gently, tugged on Dick’s hair to move him whichever way he wanted and Dick was going to die of pleasure, he really was. Every time he thought Lew might pull away he gave him more instead, pulling him closer with each renewed kiss, like he was happy to do it for the rest of his life – eager to do it, needing it. It was so urgent and sweet that Dick felt like he was being beautifully drowned.

Finally Lew did stop, resting his head on Dick’s shoulder and panting. “That’s – that’s for every single second of the last five years,” he said unsteadily. “You have no idea.”

“I have some idea,” Dick said. He was shivering all over, his hips shifting without his conscious control even as he tried to keep Lew at a safe distance so he wouldn’t feel how hard he was. Lew looked down and smiled, taking his hand and kissing the tips of his fingers.

“It’s all right,” he said, working his way between Dick’s thighs. Dick started when he felt Lew against him, hard, his breath rushing out as Lew’s hands slid down over his hips and encouraged him to move. Lew pressed tight against him, rubbing through his jeans, and the sensation pushed him right up to the edge so fast that all he could do was hold onto Lew. He couldn’t _think_. He waited to feel panic, but there was only the warmth of Lew around him and against him, holding him and pushing him closer and closer, and he was shivering so hard and moaning against Lew’s lips and it felt so good –

“Lew,” he panted. “ _Lew_ , I can’t–”

“Are you going to come?” Lew whispered.

He nodded frantically, so close he could feel it pulsing between his legs.

“Oh my god,” Lew said, and pulled back. Dick gasped in dismay, but he was only undoing Dick’s jeans. “Don’t worry, don’t – I just want to touch you, that’s all.”

He reached down to help and Lew shook his head, unbuttoning and tugging at his pants and shorts until they were somewhere around his thighs. He wanted to be embarrassed, and he was a little, but mostly because he was so undone and Lew could see it so plainly – he was almost as wet as if he’d already come, arching and straining to get the pressure and friction of Lew’s body against his, about to lose it no matter what.

“I know, I know,” Lew said soothingly. He leaned in again, still firmly between Dick’s spread legs, and when he kissed him and slid his fingers around his cock at the same time, Dick was done for, hips rocking out of control, coming everywhere. Lew tried to keep kissing him, but the surge of pleasure was so strong it was almost painful and it was too much, it knocked him down and he knew he was crying out but he couldn’t stop himself. Blindly, he clung to Lew, who drew his head down to his shoulder and stroked his back.

It took Dick a while to realize Lew was murmuring in his ear. “You’re unbelievable,” he said, his voice more tender than anything Dick had ever heard. “I can’t even tell you how much I love you. It’s awful. I love you so damn much.”

He lifted his head then, and he was almost unable to meet Lew’s eyes but forced himself to do it anyway. Lew was looking at him like he had done something wondrous. He reached for Lew, wanting – he wasn’t sure he could articulate it, but he knew he wanted to fold himself up into Lew’s arms and stay there a while. There was something about the way they fit together that satisfied him deep down, in a way that wasn’t sexual at all even as he realized that nothing he’d ever seen was better than Lew right at that moment, his eyes hot and his hands trembling on Dick’s body.

“Can I touch you?” he asked, running the backs of his fingers over Lew’s stomach.

“Jesus yes, I’m so turned on I feel like I’m gonna die,” Lew said shakily.

His whole life, Dick thought, he’d remember this: the way the button and zipper tab felt against his fingers, the black of Lew’s shorts against his pale stomach, the thick, hard cock in his hand for the first time. He was torn between eagerness and embarrassment – he wanted to touch and see more than anything, he’d dreamed about it for such a long time, and yet the vulnerability of Lew’s nakedness was overwhelming.

“Have you ever?” Lew asked.

Dick shook his head. “Not with anyone.”

He almost didn’t want to look at Lew to see the reaction, but he need not have worried; Lew was giving him that look again, the one that made Dick feel like he’d done something extraordinary. “This must be weird for you.”

He shook his head again. “It isn’t. I just...”

“Do you want me to show you?” Lew asked in a low voice. Dick made a shaky noise that sounded, to his ears, a little too close to a whimper for comfort. But Lew’s hand was suddenly on his, firm and guiding, and he shuddered everywhere and made the noise again without even caring.

The pace Lew set was lazy, luxurious like he had all the time in the world. Dick was always brisk and efficient about it, having tried and failed throughout his adolescence to suppress something he saw as an embarrassing inconvenience. Lew’s fingers tightened around his and made him go even slower for a minute before he let go and allowed Dick to do as he pleased.

“This is,” Dick began, and couldn’t quite finish. “I always…wanted to do this.”

Lew leaned his forehead against Dick’s and looked down, watching what he was doing. “I can’t believe it,” he said. “I can’t.”

“Can’t believe what?”

“That you’re touching me,” he said, his breathing coming quicker and more ragged with each stroke. “I never thought – you never seemed interested.”

Dick moved his hand a little faster. It drew a helpless sound from Lew, and Dick felt himself gasp in response. “I tried not to be,” he whispered, running his other hand up and down Lew’s side as if to urge him on. The feel of Lew’s skin through his shirt, warm and soft, made his own skin tingle as if he were the one being touched.

“I thought you didn’t care about it. You never talked about it, you never looked at anyone,” Lew said, his voice tight – so close, Dick thought, his heart pounding like he was the one about to come.

“That’s not true,” he said. “I just never looked at anyone but you.”

Lew’s breath suddenly grew harsh and loud before he choked out _oh my god, oh_ and Dick realized he was coming a split second before his hand grew slick. He felt closer to Lew than he ever had, and when he realized Lew was trembling he was startled by the wave of love that hit him and how badly he wanted to fold him up into his own body.

“Do you want a shower?” he said when Lew had calmed. “It’s freezing in here.”

Lew nodded, his eyes still closed. Dick moved to pull away and Lew caught him, hugging him tight, heedless of the mess they had made.

“Hey,” he said softly, rubbing his cheek against Lew’s.

“Sorry,” Lew said. “I’m still a little…I don’t know.”

“Yeah, me too,” Dick said.

In the shower Lew seemed to have recovered, teasing Dick over how slowly he undressed while mist from the hot water rolled through the bathroom.

“Come on, the water’ll be cold before you get your socks off,” he said from inside the bathtub. “How did you make it through OCS being this slow?”

“I have stains all over my clothes,” he said, rinsing his shirt out in the sink. “For some reason.”

“Sounds like someone gave you a good time.”

“I don’t know, it was so long ago I barely remember,” Dick said, climbing into the shower.

Lew scrubbed him down and kissed him under the water and teased him some more, until he was hard again, so hard he was dizzy.

“What should I – what do you want me to do?” he asked Lew. The question made his cock twitch and he raised an eyebrow at himself for a moment, wondering where that spark of excitement had come from.

“I think,” Lew said, biting his lip and looking Dick up and down, “I want you to touch yourself.”

He didn’t think he could get any pinker under the hot water, but he was pretty sure he was lobster red now. “Touch myself?”

“Yeah.” Lew nodded. “Yeah, pretend I’m not here. Do what you’d do in the shower. I want to see.”

He wondered if Lew knew he always did it in the shower. It was quick, clean, and efficient, although it had become somewhat Pavlovian over the years and he’d had a difficult time getting himself under control when he had to shower in a group. He gave Lew an uncertain look, and Lew nodded at him encouragingly until he turned to the shower wall, put his arm up and leaned his forehead on it, closed his eyes, bit his lip, and started to stroke himself fast and hard. Knowing Lew was watching changed everything, but he tried to do it exactly like he would have if he were alone despite the fact that his skin tingled and he kept feeling goosebumps rise on any part of him that wasn’t under the water. He was very close very fast, biting his lips to hold back even the speeding up of his breath as he always did, and right when he was starting to shudder, Lew reached out a hand to stop him.

“God, you’re impatient,” he said, his voice amused and fond. “I’ve never seen someone go at it like that.”

Dick lifted his head, panting. “I just…I like to get it over with.”

“You don’t try to make it to feel good?” Lew asked, running a hand over his back until he reached his ass. “Stretch it out as long as you can?”

He shook his head, and Lew gently pulled his hand away from his cock.

“I’ll show you,” he said, and started to stroke him unbearably slowly, the way he’d done to himself earlier. His other hand stayed on Dick’s ass, soothing, until after a few moments he slid his fingers downward and brushed a fingertip over him.

“Oh my god,” he said breathlessly, his body unsure whether to pull away or push back.

“Yeah.” Lew kissed his shoulder and touched him again, his fingers so light, just tracing small circles while the other hand stayed slow on his cock. Dick’s breath stuttered out of him and his hips moved forward and back, trying to get more of both, more of anything.

“ _Lew_ ,” he said through gritted teeth, so frustrated he wanted to scream.

“Ssh,” Lew said, and refused to go faster, and for some reason it made Dick feel like he was coming out of his skin. He was twitching hard in Lew’s hand, getting his fingers all wet before the shower washed it away.

“Lew, come on, I need–” He slapped the shower wall, wishing he could claw at it.

“Not yet,” Lew said. “Just be patient. Does it feel good?”

He pressed his face against the cool tile and nodded. Surely, he thought, surely Lew would give him more – fingers inside him, something, anything. But he didn’t, just slid his fist up and slowly back down again, teasing his ass, and in spite of the lack of his usual rough stimulation he found himself moving toward the edge anyway, so achingly slow that he did end up clawing the wall a little bit, and – well, no two ways about it this time, he was whimpering. He stifled it against his wrist but it happened nonetheless, and when Lew whispered “Do you need more?” and pressed his finger in just the slightest bit, Dick broke, hips bucking hard between Lew’s firm fist and his fingers, come pulsing out onto Lew’s hand and the shower wall. He found himself sobbing around his wrist, his hair plastered to his forehead in the now-cool water. Lew pulled him close and shushed him gently as if he were upset – and maybe he was; he couldn’t quite catch his breath and it took a long time before he was really aware of the outside world again.

Lew turned off the shower and got them both towels as fast as he could, teeth chattering. He wrapped a towel around himself and dried Dick off until he caught up, his sluggish brain acknowledging that he, Richard Winters, was wet and cold. Then he dried himself in silence, blinking in a way he recognized from twenty-four hours shifts.

“Think I need to go to bed,” he mumbled, rubbing his hair with the towel. “Just for a little while.”

“Me too,” Lew said. “You wore me out.”

He was too tired to do more than smile at the thought, and the moment he had stumbled into his bedroom and slid under his covers, he was out. It was still light out when he woke, disoriented and certain he was late for something. He lay flat on his back, held down by the weight of Lew’s arm and leg. Lew’s face was mashed against Dick’s shoulder, and although Dick knew Lew could sleep through a tornado and wouldn’t wake if he got out of bed, he didn’t want to leave this particular moment behind. He didn’t like to sleep naked, not out of any particular prudishness but because he liked to be warm and didn’t radiate much heat in his sleep, but being naked in bed with Lew beside him was an entirely different experience. Lew was warm enough for both of them, and Dick was as cozy as he’d ever been before.

In a few minutes Lew stirred, and when Dick turned his head he saw Lew was smiling, his eyes still closed.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“Dick Winters kissed me,” Lew mumbled against his shoulder.

“That doesn’t sound like him at all,” Dick said.

“I know.” Lew stretched, making a catlike noise. Dick was helplessly charmed and then chided himself for it. “I keep thinking it’s the nicest dream I’ve ever had.”

Dick turned to face him. “What can I do to make you think it’s real?”

Lew opened his eyes. “Say ‘fuck you, Herbert Sobel.’”

“What? No.”

Lew shrugged and pulled him closer by the hips. “Well, there you go.”

He felt awkward, not knowing how to intertwine his limbs with Lew’s.

“I don’t really know what to do,” he confessed.

“Mm, don’t worry about that,” Lew said, kissing his neck. “Just lie back and let me keep you in bed for a few days and we’ll be good to go.”

“What about Kitty and Harry and Lip and Speirs?” Dick murmured.

“Shit,” Lew said, propping himself up on one elbow. “You know what, I’ll go back down and just tell them we were fighting and you aren’t feeling well or something.”

“I can go too,” he protested, sitting up.

Lew softened, smoothing Dick’s hair down on the side. “No,” he said. “It’s all over you. They’d know the second they saw us together.”

It didn’t seem exactly fair – Lew looked like he’d been kissed for hours, his lips swollen and his whole body relaxed and loose – but Dick supposed he could pass it off with alcohol and Dick couldn’t. Lew threw his clothes on, stealing both Dick’s Franklin and Marshall t-shirt and one of his flannels, and kissed Dick on the mouth fast before he rushed out the door, leaving Dick sitting on the edge of the bed in just his shorts. He felt a little like he had after drinking the cough syrup, dazed and slightly stupid, in love with everything, his skin buzzing. He dressed dreamily and went out to pay attention to Burt, and tried to watch television but failed completely. His lips were sore and he couldn’t stop touching them and closing his eyes against the flurry it evoked.

He was in bed long before they all came back up from the bar, noisy and drunk and laughing, pulling out the air mattresses and the blankets and watching late night television. When Lew snuck into his room it was almost three in the morning.

“Hi,” he whispered, sliding under the covers and pressing his cold feet against Dick’s legs. Dick sleepily wrapped around him. “I guess you didn’t spend the night up here regretting all your choices the way I was afraid you were going to.”

“Nope,” Dick said, surging up when Lew pushed him onto his back and kissed him, his mouth not tasting of whiskey.

“Can I – god, you’re so hard already,” Lew said, hushed, his fingers slipping under Dick’s pajama bottoms. “Do you want me to touch you?”

He nodded, already halfway there when Lew pulled down his pajamas and shorts and pressed their naked cocks together, stroking them both with one hand. He was falling apart even before he reached down to help and Lew whispered _no, no, let me, I want to be the one to do it, just let me take care of you_. Then he had to put both hands over his mouth to muffle his moans.

“You’re going to kill me,” Lew said, his voice low and trembling. He held himself up with one hand on Dick’s chest, and brushed his thumb over one nipple, which made Dick arch up into his fist. He did it twice and then shifted his weight so he could bend down and suck, and the moment his lips touched Dick’s skin he realized he was about to come and that when he did, he would be doing it not just all over Lew’s hand but also his cock. The thought was enough to set him off and he spilled messily everywhere, one hand clamped down on his own mouth and the other on the back of Lew’s head. Lew, still sucking, moaned brokenly and Dick knew he was coming too. Dick urged him upward so he could kiss him through it, uncoordinated and wild at first and then slower, calming him.

They lay together breathing hard, Lew sprawled out on top of him, until Lew moved to get up. Dick tightened his arms around him.

“Stay,” he whispered. “I’ll wake you up and you can go back to your room before everybody gets up.”

“Mm, good,” Lew mumbled, settling back down. He wrestled Dick’s clothes the rest of the way off and used them to clean up before he pitched them on the floor, which Dick might have protested under any other circumstances. While Lew fell asleep with his face in Dick’s neck, Dick lazily stroked his back and tried to make sense of everything. It was difficult when he kept being thrown by waves of happiness and sense memory. His entire world was different now that he knew Lew loved him. They could do anything, really, he thought, struggling not to plan and dream. He had no idea what Lew wanted with his future, or if he even wanted to spend all of it with Dick. Lew’s romantic track record, to which Dick had borne far too much witness, was spotty at best, and Dick’s was nonexistent. And then he counted over everything Lew had said and done to him, which began the cycle all over again until he was sick of the inside of his own head.

Somewhere around dawn, Lew woke up just enough to curl even closer to him and kiss his neck and his ears, murmuring things Dick suspected he’d be embarrassed by during the day. Dick listened, smiling, and knew that in the end, even if this was all temporary, it was worth having had it.

*

In March, Speirs and Lip and Harry and Kitty came in again. It was the beginning of spring break for Lew and Dick and the week after spring break for Lip, who expressed a distinct wish to do something other than play pool. Lew had promised him poker, and teased Dick about using his penny jar until Dick almost admitted he knew how to play and had just never told him. You couldn’t live with the boys he’d lived with at Franklin and Marshall and not come out a fine poker player. Lip knew, and Dick was reasonably sure he’d keep quiet about it so they could see how Lew reacted.

After his last midterm exam that day, he dragged himself home, half-wishing everyone was coming up the next day instead so he could have a quiet night in with Lew. But Lew had been keyed up all morning and couldn’t wait; sometimes Dick thought he was only ever at full energy when he was having sex or when he was out on the town.

Lew was reading on the couch when he got home, and he crawled onto the couch with him, carefully maneuvering until he was exactly where he wanted to be: wrapped around Lew with his head resting on his chest.

“Hi,” Lew said softly, setting his book down and putting both arms around him to draw him even closer. He kissed all along Dick’s forehead and murmured, “Tough day at the office, honey?”

“Don’t you worry your pretty head about it,” Dick mumbled into Lew’s shirt. The endearment, though Dick knew it was meant teasingly, made him shiver a little. It was accompanied by the kind of gentle fussing that Lew was good at: finding the knot in his back, stroking his hair away from his forehead and kissing it, whispering that it was all right and Lew was going to make him feel better. It continued to shock him how much he liked all of it; he warmed until he felt like he was melting under Lew’s ministrations no matter how shy and bashful they made him. He relaxed into it, sighing in total contentment, and was dozing by the time Lew picked up his book and started to read again.

“Everybody’s coming up tonight,” Lew said after a while. “Are you ready?”

He wasn’t sure if he was ready or not. This thing with Lew was so new to him but sometimes felt like it had been going on forever, and he kept forgetting that nobody knew. He had no intention of bringing it up, but somehow he thought it must be written all over them, and that the moment he saw Kitty and Harry they would see it, and see him differently. Not that they would think any more or less of him for being with Lew – he knew that about all four of them, at least – but that he would become different to them because he loved anyone at all. As much as he cared about them, they weren’t Lew, and they didn’t get very far past his reserve. Having anyone know without a doubt that he felt something as private as being in love grated on him.

“You don’t mind not telling them, do you?” he asked.

“Nope,” Lew said, turning a page. “But you know, if they figure it out on their own I don’t want to lie to them.”

“I guess not.” Dick rubbed his face against Lew’s shirt.

“They won’t figure it out, not with your poker face,” Lew said. “If you ever bothered to learn how to play, you’d make thousands.”

“Maybe,” Dick said. “But what would you even do if I were a great poker player?”

“Send you out on the road like a freak show. Come get hustled by the teetotaler from Lancaster,” Lew said. “And his sidekick, Burt the Bearded Child.”

Burt lifted his head, realized that they were talking about neither walks nor food, and flopped back down with a huff.

At PJ’s, Lew got a glass of water for Dick and coke for himself. So far, he had managed not to arouse any suspicion with Harry that his glass wasn’t full of alcohol, and Dick knew he hoped to keep it that way indefinitely. If it were up to Lew, nobody would pay any attention at all to what he was drinking. No pressure, he said, but when he’d had it licked for a few years, he thought it would be funny to tell Harry he’d been stone cold sober the entire time, just for the look on his face.

Speirs ordered four pitchers of beer and two kinds of nachos, with a flourish the way he always did when he was already drunk. He and Lip must have gotten started ahead of time, Dick thought, eyeing Speirs’s red nose and Lipton’s hand on his shoulder.

“Gentlemen,” Harry said, and Dick realized they had all been into the beer well before he and Lew had even gotten there. “This is the anniversary–”

“Congratulations,” Lip said.

“–of the day I first decided to ask Kitty to marry me.”

Lew threw a wadded up napkin at him. “Jesus, Harry,” he said.

“No,” Lip said. “That’s nice. It’s nice that you remember it.”

“Yeah,” Harry said. “Being in love is nice.”

“Well, what’s so nice about it?” Speirs asked suddenly, with that strange intense look he sometimes used on the men. It sat even more strangely with his relaxed posture, loose in a way Dick didn’t remember him being at all when they were in Afghanistan.

Harry turned to Kitty. “What’s so nice about it?” he asked. “I get to see her all the time.”

She smiled. “The company is pretty nice,” she said. “But I’m here for the sex.”

Harry poured himself another pint out of the pitcher while they hooted at him, then pointed at Lipton. “Get them off my back.”

“Pass,” Lipton said, raising his glass. “I haven’t had that experience yet.”

“Me neither,” Speirs said, and turned to Dick. It was clear he didn’t expect Dick to add anything to the conversation – he was already looking at Lew, who was smirking at him.

“Breakfast every morning,” Dick said. He hadn’t known until just that moment that he was going to say it, but as soon as the words came out he realized how tight he’d been the whole night. Lew’s arm rested on the back of his chair, the way it often did, and he relaxed into it. The look Lew gave him just then, he thought, was worth everybody knowing.

“Breakfast every morning,” Lew agreed with a pleased little smile.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Harry said. “Kitty, I’m a prophet. I’m buying lotto tickets tonight.”

“Oh my god,” she said. “This again. You get one thing right and suddenly you’re Miss Cleo.”

“No, I knew,” Harry said. “Lew, tell her. I said you were going to get married and have babies.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Lew said. “You told me I should hook up with Shifty.”

“Aw, come on,” Harry said, throwing up his hands.

“I can’t help what you said,” Lew said, bringing a couple of decks of cards out of his coat pockets. “Ron, do you have the chips?”

As Lew set up the game, explaining what he was doing to Dick the entire time, Dick caught Lip’s eye. Lip tilted his chin toward Lew, and Dick wondered what all he was asking. Knowing Lip, it could be anything from _is it going okay?_ to _I’m happy for you_ to _does he know you’re about to fleece him?_   Dick nodded, knowing he didn’t just mean that it was going okay and he was glad Lip was happy for him, and that Lew did not know he was about to be fleeced, but that everything in his world – within and without – was allowed to be good. It was good, and he loved it without any guilt at all.


End file.
